TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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THERAPIST: Thank you.

CLIENT: I got a haircut.

THERAPIST: It's a little hard for me to tell because it looks a little wet. [ph]

CLIENT: Well it's like the same length except without the birds' nests [ph] at the end. And I went in there at 9:47 because I've been trying to get a haircut for a long time and the place by my house is always so busy. [00:01:10.06] [inaudible]

THERAPIST: You mean like just now?

CLIENT: Mm-hm. 9:47 today. It's pretty typical of me. Like when I realize I'm going to be early somewhere, it's not a very uncomfortable if I have other things that I want to do and could squeeze in. So I was risking being late. (pause) But I don't learn because I'm not late and it worked out. [00:02:09.11] I'm not sure why I said I still haven't forgiven you for not taking the HMO. I don't know what that means. I'm still angry and hurt about it but I don't know that forgiveness has anything to do with it. I'm not sure [inaudible] (pause) It's confusing. (pause)

THERAPIST: Well, maybe it's a bit different being angry at me for stopping taking the HMO and being hurt. [00:04:43.18] And maybe it feels it a little bit less safe to have been hurt and then either kind of forgiving or not.

CLIENT: Mm-hm. (pause) How many other patients did you lose?

THERAPIST: I'm not going to answer that.

CLIENT: I think I'm hurt because you were willing to lose me. (pause) And then of course you were also very willing to keep me, but not without a lot of input from my end. [00:06:22.25] Or like not without a lot of pain first on my end. (pause) So I think that I feel hurt and it has something to do with that. [00:07:34.23] I feel angry because I want this to be accessible to as many people as possible. And you're just I mean you're a stand-in for the craft, for the field. So it's not like I expect you to open yourself up to as many people as possible. It's not it didn't feel like it was going in the right direction. [00:08:38.18] So it's sort of [inaudible] unjust decision. (pause)

THERAPIST: I imagine part of the current anger has to do with my disappointing you by not being more open [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:10:16.04]

THERAPIST: Maybe kind of non-materialistic. (pause)

CLIENT: I think that's right.

THERAPIST: And in addition to making things more difficult for you and being kind of less accessible in general, that's not how I'm supposed to be. [00:11:10.02] (pause)

CLIENT: You're supposed to be better. I've been paying attention to this idea, [inaudible] idea, that love can never cause suffering. [00:12:30.26] But attachment is what causes suffering, not necessarily in the general [inaudible] sense but in the sense of its like really intimately mixed in [inaudible] This is something that Phillipa [ph] said like towards the beginning of this once a week difficult thoughts and emotions class. I picked up on it and she didn't talk about it anymore [inaudible] question at the last meeting of the class, which I was nervous to do because there are so many people and the pain felt way more at the surface during those times so it was hard to speak about attachment causing suffering. [00:14:19.26] [inaudible] But anyway, one thing that came out of that was the use of the metta practice. Recognize it? So one of the categories is the benefactor.

THERAPIST: I can say I'm somewhat familiar with it. I'm not...

CLIENT: So...

THERAPIST: In metta practices [inaudible] lovingkindness meditation, but I don't know...

CLIENT: So the practice is you wish well in whatever way you want [inaudible] practice, specific practice you have, but you wish that peace and safety and [inaudible] on or to yourself and for yourself. [00:15:34.29] And the other categories are for your benefactor, a benefactor, for a friend, for a neutral person, for a difficult person, and for all beings. And I don't have a daily metta practice but it's useful. It can be useful to use one for some of those categories to take those [inaudible] but it can also be useful to go through the whole thing. And so the benefactor category was something that I didn't really understand or pay much attention to. And it sort of came up in the context of this love not causing suffering that a way into that exploring that idea is in the benefactor, where there's maybe a more simple transfer of kindness than maybe for the friend or the difficult person or yourself. [00:17:09.03] And (pause) while it's I still haven't I still don't quite know I can't pick a benefactor in this way, but Phillipa [ph] spoke about sort of like using our relationships as a sort of simple where the unconditional loving feelings are more at the surface, more accessible, and taking this up as an object of meditation and sort of seeing how all the not unconditional, all the conditional things start to appear or arise. [00:18:26.05]

THERAPIST: You mean taking the unconditional lovingkindness of the benefactor as the focus [inaudible] conditional aspect of lovingkindness kind of spontaneously arise in your mind. In other words, well what if I'm not this way enough or what if they're preoccupied or whatever.

CLIENT: Yeah. And in that process gaining some insight into how to suffer less around relationship where relationships where there's a lot of love and a lot of attachment, and also how to just know, how to know both aspects better. This is something I've been thinking about a lot and I haven't really landed. So when I said you're supposed to be better, (pause) it felt like attachment had arisen in a poor, unconditional way. You are not a benefactor at the moment for the purposes of this meditation exercise. [00:20:45.04] But I think if I were to start with some simpler people it would be important for me to move to you sometime. Because there's too much emotion to start to overwhelm me. The attachment is too strong. I'm having trouble thinking [inaudible] Which is possibly why this was brought up to me in the first place. So my reply to Phillipa [ph] which is like she was directing the whole room. I was like oh, well I've been skipping the benefactor. I don't really know what to do with it. She said the benefactor is the only one that I would [inaudible] Then someone tapped me on the shoulder at the meeting, after the class [inaudible] the benefactor [inaudible] And at that point, after hearing this lady tell me that [inaudible] the whole point. There's so much attachment for everyone for me right now. No one seems simple. [00:22:44.14]

THERAPIST: Hmm...

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: All right. There's something going on here. I'm not sure...

CLIENT: There's certainly something going on with you, in [ph] you. (pause)

THERAPIST: Well I guess I have a (pause) thought. [00:24:38.10] First of all, it sort of [inaudible] first one, then probably a second [inaudible] one. But I guess I wondered why Phillipa [ph] couldn't be your benefactor.

CLIENT: She said she's sort of the closest one. But I mean I haven't I've sort of just been thinking that I haven't actually sat [ph] in it. When I think of Phillipa [ph] I'm overcome by these fantasies of kissing [ph] her and fusing with her. And having her acknowledge my good question and [inaudible]

THERAPIST: I see. (pause) [inaudible] I had that was sort of [inaudible] seems maybe related to some of the stuff we've been talking about [inaudible] well that just something about the well I think you're disappointed in me and frustrated with me. And angry and hurt. Not so (pause) not a [inaudible] source of refuge. [00:27:11.08]

CLIENT: (laughs) (pause) No shit. [ph] (pause) We've [ph] made Jeremy feel [inaudible] I guess that's complicated. I think I have done something and also [inaudible] future. (pause) Why did you feel that you needed to shield yourself [inaudible]

THERAPIST: I'm not quite [inaudible]

CLIENT: But you [ph] told me that. [00:30:13.05]

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: That's interesting. (pause) I guess it feels like (pause) my anger is pretty meek and but that's been my relationship with it. So it's it was strange to hear the word shield. (pause) Like I wonder if that's if that comes more from you or if it comes more from like your needing to shield yourself from anger in general. [00:32:02.28] Or maybe my anger's more powerful than I give it credit for or something. (pause) And I haven't I don't have a lot of anger that comes up as anger.

THERAPIST: Let me say a little more. I don't it's sort of a tricky line between not wanting to occupy too much of me and at the same time not kind of wanting to be fair to you, which is what I mentioned in the first place, [inaudible] guilty in that instance. I think that's what it was about. [00:33:19.27] (pause)

CLIENT: Which would be better? You shouldn't feel guilty. You made your decision; you should stick by it. There's a lot there. I don't know what to do with guilt. [00:34:29.23] I don't know what to do with your guilt. I don't feel like I have much of a relationship with guilt in itself. I think it's because it's hard for me to tolerate mixed emotions surrounding what I choose to do or how I [inaudible]

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: Do you still feel guilty? [00:35:37.28]

THERAPIST: [inaudible] I think I'm not going to answer.

CLIENT: You've gotten a little haircut. [ph] I don't [inaudible] I don't know if the vacation we're going on is [inaudible]

THERAPIST: Where are you going? [00:36:59.17] Did we talk about it?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: But after [inaudible] question. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: You better be careful about that.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think it's pretty [inaudible]

THERAPIST: You going to Carlisle or something?

CLIENT: Jeremy's family gets together every summer [inaudible] usually Jeremy's dad [inaudible] and their children and their children. They're going to the Rio Grande in Mexico. We're renting a house on the river for an extended weekend, the first weekend, and then we're renting a house in Baja for the rest of the week.

THERAPIST: So you're away next week? [00:38:08.25]

CLIENT: [inaudible]

THERAPIST: [inaudible] (pause)

CLIENT: Someone was calling you right then?

THERAPIST: Mm-hm.

CLIENT: Whoa. [inaudible] doesn't matter. [inaudible] Jeremy and I spent...

THERAPIST: [inaudible] bit more comfortable [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah, insane. [ph]

THERAPIST: How so?

CLIENT: That was a [inaudible] comment. [00:40:05.26]

THERAPIST: [inaudible] criticism.

CLIENT: You were just trying to assuage your disappointment or your fear. You're sort of being sort of dismissive or, I don't know, [inaudible] all about it. No, that's not what this is about. This is about your not wanting to be disappointed, your not wanting to think that I did something disappointing. If I decide that the vacation is [inaudible] too, then we're in the same boat. That's better than being in different boats. (pause) I was going to tell you about pickles. We this is one of the special things about being with Jeremy. We spent [inaudible] pickling seven pounds of cucumbers that we got from Brian's farm. Big jars. We made dinner together and we ate dinner and then we watched pickles for an hour. [00:42:33.26] And there are lots of whole spices [ph] in the jar [inaudible] because of the way the carbon dioxide [inaudible] fermentation comes [inaudible] the spices go up and down in these spice elevators. And sometimes a whole garlic clove [inaudible] we only saw one. The black pepper [inaudible] the sort of rare but it happens sometimes, and then the seeds were zooming up and down [inaudible] so cool. So we spent a long time watching pickles, spice elevators and took a video, sort of talked about the science of [inaudible] and just watched. Then we had this amazing sex. It was as if the pickles had been foreplay. [00:43:46.19] I mean I think we have amazing sex every time but there was something about the pickles that made it very novel and exciting. We changed positions a lot and we ended it in this position where he comes into me from behind, which is I've described this before; it's just so overwhelming for me. Yesterday I started crying immediately. So he's like moaning, I'm like sobbing, and sometimes [inaudible] comes into my head during sex but not that often. But it was a nice it's been a nice break from you. But yesterday during most of this, nobody came into my head, and then as soon as we got into that position, it was almost like I mean I'm laughing because it was so it was like all right, Jay, come on in. And you were just everywhere. It was very painful and it was physically very painful. I was sort of like so tense and waiting for it to end. And also delighting in how sort of erotic and dominating it felt. It was big. Jeremy asked if we shouldn't do that position anymore. I said you know what, we should totally do it. But then I went and sat [inaudible] sort of just sat with it. Yeah. Bye.

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